IlGreven:...because, clearly, if he was a true champion for the poor, he would have been poor himself. It's not like money is power or anything.

The issue isn't the presence of wealth, but the means by which it was acquired.

If the article is correct - and I'm not particularly impressed with the source cited - then there is almost certainly a corruption problem. Hugo Chavez spent the last fourteen years or so in public service, and spent most of the time before that in the military. There's no way his legitimate income for that adds up to $1-2 Billion.

If he's really got that kind of net worth it's from stealing from the government treasury. That's a major problem if you've been portraying yourself as a socialist with the best interests of your nation's poor at heart.

/Here's a 2009 article where President Chavez stated his Presidential income was $1300/month, and that he also received a military pension. He noted that he insisted on paying taxes despite the fact that his income was low enough that he was not required to. http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4334">http://venezuelanalysis.com/ne ws/4334

FarkedOver:Capitalism works great if you're in a powerful country. Ask the people of any country rich in natural resources but lacking any semblance of a life for the people are doing. They are exploited day in and day out so that you can rest comfortably every day and not have to think about what a shiatty place the world really is. When people in these countries become class aware you should be scared.

What they need is protection of their property rights. In other words, economic freedom, which necessarily includes market freedom.

The main impediment to their achieving these things is you (and people like you), via the promotion of error, falsehood, and other bad ideas.

FarkedOver:give me doughnuts: FarkedOver: You're old, so let me explain this to you. Your old ways are dying. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Free markets are only free in the sense that they are free to exploit.

You're naive, so let me explain this to you. Your ways have been tried, and they failed.

internut scholar: give me doughnuts: FarkedOver: You're old, so let me explain this to you. Your old ways are dying. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Free markets are only free in the sense that they are free to exploit.

You're naive, so let me explain this to you. Your ways have been tried, and they failed.

But not by him and his crew. THIS time they will get it to work.

Capitalism works great if you're in a powerful country. Ask the people of any country rich in natural resources but lacking any semblance of a life for the people are doing. They are exploited day in and day out so that you can rest comfortably every day and not have to think about what a shiatty place the world really is. When people in these countries become class aware you should be scared.

Well, first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

"So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system"

"The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way."

When capitalism fails I am going to switch sides, get on the ground floor of the revolution so I can rise up high in the Commie Party so I can be wealthy like Chavez. Us capitalist will do whatever it takes to be successful.

FarkedOver:Phinn: What they need is protection of their property rights. In other words, economic freedom, which necessarily includes market freedom.

The main impediment to their achieving these things is you (and people like you), via the promotion of error, falsehood, and other bad ideas.

Hmmmm it's almost as if they should organize and make demands....

This is why talking to a Marxist is largely a waste of time -- you tend to use ordinary words (like "organize") in ways that don't agree with ordinary usage.

Economic freedom and property is a form of social "organization." So, yes, they should "organize" their society on economically-free terms.

You think "organize" means something else, like "stealing somebody's stuff, because he has it and we don't." Or "creating an artificial labor scarcity by violently preventing other people from entering voluntary relationships with employers."

The reason that you resort to sanitizing the language is that your arguments can't stand on their own.

"Make demands" is another term that's been twisted beyond recognition by Kollege Kommies. To whom would one make these demands? Who is supposed to be giving things in response? An economically-free society doesn't depend on the largess of omnipotent rights-givers to function. The very language you use demonstrates that you still believe in an all-powerful giver, like a god or parent, who doles out what you want and need. So, naturally, your solution to your perceived deprivation is to "make demands," louder and louder, until someone gives it to you.

It never occurs to you to go out into the world, like an adult, and create benefits for yourself, by cooperating with others on a mutually-voluntary basis. You can't do that, or choose not to, so you resort to stealing, just like Chavez did his whole life.

Joe Blowme:"So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system"

"The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way."

Communism would be the grand answer. Communism is a worldwide struggle and movement. The whole of the proletariat must take part in the struggle to achieve communism. This is why I like Trotsky. He advocates for struggle against oppression every where worldwide and solidarity amongst all workers. Stalinists advocated (and probably still do) for "Socialism in one country". Which is just anti-marxist/anti-worker/anti-communist as you can be.

I'm sorry, I don't put my faith in free markets. I put my faith in cooperation of the working class, more will be achieved that way than any other way.

Phinn:FarkedOver: Phinn: What they need is protection of their property rights. In other words, economic freedom, which necessarily includes market freedom.

The main impediment to their achieving these things is you (and people like you), via the promotion of error, falsehood, and other bad ideas.

Hmmmm it's almost as if they should organize and make demands....

This is why talking to a Marxist is largely a waste of time -- you tend to use ordinary words (like "organize") in ways that don't agree with ordinary usage.

Economic freedom and property is a form of social "organization." So, yes, they should "organize" their society on economically-free terms.

You think "organize" means something else, like "stealing somebody's stuff, because he has it and we don't." Or "creating an artificial labor scarcity by violently preventing other people from entering voluntary relationships with employers."

The reason that you resort to sanitizing the language is that your arguments can't stand on their own.

"Make demands" is another term that's been twisted beyond recognition by Kollege Kommies. To whom would one make these demands? Who is supposed to be giving things in response? An economically-free society doesn't depend on the largess of omnipotent rights-givers to function. The very language you use demonstrates that you still believe in an all-powerful giver, like a god or parent, who doles out what you want and need. So, naturally, your solution to your perceived deprivation is to "make demands," louder and louder, until someone gives it to you.

It never occurs to you to go out into the world, like an adult, and create benefits for yourself, by cooperating with others on a mutually-voluntary basis. You can't do that, or choose not to, so you resort to stealing, just like Chavez did his whole life.

You're anti-union / bull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of guy. That's great. I, on the other hand, do not see things that way. Sorry to be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum as you. The ideas are only bad if you stand to gain through the exploitation of labor, in my humble opinion.

FarkedOver:Joe Blowme: Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way.

Einstein was a socialist. Henry Ford believed in paying a living wage to employees.

Further more, I think a case can be made that greed as we all know and love it is actually a construct of capitalism itself.

Einstein was a patent clerk. He worked for a government agency that guaranteed property rights on ideas.

Ford paid good wages so his employees would be happier and healthier and thus more productive. He also got hugely rich. He may have had some ideas on social experimentation (good and bad), but never forget that he was a rich capitalist CEO and factory owner.

FarkedOver:You're anti-union / bull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of guy. That's great. I, on the other hand, do not see things that way. Sorry to be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum as you. The ideas are only bad if you stand to gain through the exploitation of labor, in my humble opinion.

Thanks for attempting to tell me who I am, but I'm a "cooperate with others on a mutually-voluntary basis" kind of guy.

Lt. Cheese Weasel:There there now, show us on the doll where the bad man touched you.

I think you make this post in every single political thread. When the best thing you've got is to imply that your opponent is a victim of pedophilia, you might want to just scoot back from the computer and take some time away.

FarkedOver:I can reasonably assume that through information and education the working class will realize they are being duped by free market zealots and con men.

Which free market zealots and con men have impoverished the people of Venezuela over the last, say, 10-15 years? What is the mechanism by which this process of impoverishment has been accomplished?

In your analysis, be sure to account for the roles of the state-sponsored bank and the state-owned oil company that accounts for 95% of the country's exports, both of which are the direct opposite of free market enterprises.

Mija:onyxruby: Corrupt hypocritical evil dictator is dead! Too bad I missed my dead pool pick by about two days. Now that the jackass of South America is dead perhaps peace will stand a chance down their again. We'll see if his successor is as good at kicking the hornets nest on queue as he is.

Chavez was elected. He was not a dictator. You either don't know what dictator means or you are repeating right wing ignorance. Either way you are pathetic.

He may have won his first election fairly, but afterwards things got dirty. He shut down any news business that criticized him or supported the opposition, he manipulated the polls, he used terror tactics on voters. An election means nothing when the people in power can guarantee the results they wish. He was by any definition, a dictator.

Phinn:Thanks for attempting to tell me who I am, but I'm a "cooperate with others on a mutually-voluntary basis" kind of guy.

You still can't define "exploitation."

You're assuming that there is a choice for the working class in this matter, and this has already been explained to you up thread. You reject the premise outright fine. But I won't waste my breath explaining it again. It's an exercise in futility as are most of your arguments with me.... so can't we just agree to disagree.

Spare Me:FarkedOver: Spare Me: Guhh wut? Soo, nobody was greedy before Capitalism? Soo, if Capitalism ends, no one will ever be greedy?

You actually believe you can eliminate greed?

Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

There are no other forms of greed?

Fundamentally what is that humans want? To go through life with as little hardship as possible. I don't believe the entire human centers around greed and people acting like dicks constantly. I am not subscribing to some bullshiat randian philosophy.

FarkedOver:You're assuming that there is a choice for the working class in this matter, and this has already been explained to you up thread. You reject the premise outright fine. But I won't waste my breath explaining it again. It's an exercise in futility as are most of your arguments with me.... so can't we just agree to disagree.

I'll agree not to attack you, but that's as far as I'll go. It's not actually possible to agree or disagree with objective fact. You're just wrong.

Your whole, tired, broke-ass, re-heated worldview depends on the idea of "exploitation" and yet you can't define it, because you've never paused to think about what it means. Your mind requires that you gloss over this half-baked concept, and never examine or question it. Otherwise you'd be forced to realize that you've wasted an inordinate amount of time advocating for something that's patently stupid, or worse, that you are responsible for the condition of your own life, that you lack the ability to work with others and negotiate for your desires in a free social environment.

What would you do if you suddenly realized that the exploitative oppression you feel was imaginary the whole time? Even more frightening -- if that's true, then who is FarkedOver?

FarkedOver:Spare Me: FarkedOver: Spare Me: Guhh wut? Soo, nobody was greedy before Capitalism? Soo, if Capitalism ends, no one will ever be greedy?

You actually believe you can eliminate greed?

Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

There are no other forms of greed?

Fundamentally what is that humans want? To go through life with as little hardship as possible. I don't believe the entire human centers around greed and people acting like dicks constantly. I am not subscribing to some bullshiat randian philosophy.

lol..nice dodge, comrade. I'd much rather have some dollar greedy people floating around than a central committee of a handful of people with power greed over a population.

Phinn:FarkedOver: You're assuming that there is a choice for the working class in this matter, and this has already been explained to you up thread. You reject the premise outright fine. But I won't waste my breath explaining it again. It's an exercise in futility as are most of your arguments with me.... so can't we just agree to disagree.

I'll agree not to attack you, but that's as far as I'll go. It's not actually possible to agree or disagree with objective fact. You're just wrong.

Your whole, tired, broke-ass, re-heated worldview depends on the idea of "exploitation" and yet you can't define it, because you've never paused to think about what it means. Your mind requires that you gloss over this half-baked concept, and never examine or question it. Otherwise you'd be forced to realize that you've wasted an inordinate amount of time advocating for something that's patently stupid, or worse, that you are responsible for the condition of your own life, that you lack the ability to work with others and negotiate for your desires in a free social environment.

What would you do if you suddenly realized that the exploitative oppression you feel was imaginary the whole time? Even more frightening -- if that's true, then who is FarkedOver?

This text is now purple:FarkedOver: Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

Greed is as old as the first amoeba that ate another amoeba.

That's not a good comparison at all. So if there is some homeless man living on the street that hasn't eaten in days and he goes into a grocery store and steals some bread, he does so because he is greedy?

Citing Henry Ford for anything is fraught with peril. The man, while a genius in regimentation, was almost certainly manic/depressive and borderline sociopath. He thoughts, both private and what few public ones that are available, show both his business practices and either terribly inconsistently applied. Trying to figure out Henergy Ford is almost a sub-area of historical research in and of itself.

As a classist historian, I hate the word Marxist as it has too much baggage, I am forever seeing this misreading of Capitalism, Socialism, and even Communism (although to be fair FarkedOver's understanding of Communism is fairly solid). Socialism at best distantly related to Communism.

Socialism, as governmental form, is an agreement between the people and government that all citizens of a country deserve a certain level of maintenance and opportunity that only government can provide. "From each his ability, to each his merit."

At its most basic level this means is that a socialist economy does not recognize oligarchical or inherited wealth, and that a certain percentage of output is, by necessity, have to be consumed by the state to ensure basic support of its citizens. More extreme views take this to mean that government should raise children so that all inherited advantages are null, but more typically it means that little to no wealth should be subject to generational transfer, instead once a person has died that anything in the excess should be taxed back to the government to help perpetuate society. This, by necessity, rejects any validity of claims to ownership of wealth via genetics or legal contrivance.

Where a lot of the confusion for people lies is what constitutes "basic support." Most socialist would agree that basic support should be based on three humanist priniciples.

1)The right to life- Everyone has a basic right to live and to assume that society will provide them with the minimal support to do so in cases where they cannot. This means enough nutrition to not suffer deprivation, basic medical care, and freedom from detention, punishment, or execution outside of acts agreed by the rest of society to be criminal in nature.

2)The right to safety- Everyone has the right to pursue their life with the expectation that others will not unduly interfere with, or jeopardize, its continuance. This means that a government should protect its populous from outside threats (military) and internal threats. Internal threats are anything that compromises populations access to the first principle, be it crime, environmental damage, or safety issues. This may, of course, lead to some cases of the "needs of the many, needs of the few" situations. But its hard to argue that someone has a natural right to perform a action that brings undo harm unto others.

3)The right to wages- While society expects you to work, it doesn't expect you to do more then you are capable of. This means that every citizen has a right to work as hard, produce as much, and consume as much as they desire once the basic needs of society are met. If a individual can muster the capital to construct a factory, then they deserve the wages and lifestyle becoming of an owner. If they are unable to meaningfully produce for society, then deserve access to the basic food, shelter, and medicine that the society provides to all their citizens, along with any arts and entertainment produced for public consumption in hopes of bettering the populous as a whole. This does not mean that they have a right to frivolous items, or items of excess, as these are items that should be purchased via wages.

/TL:DR You could drive a truck through the holes in peoples understanding of socialism//including mine///My Masters Degree keeps me warm at night////This is why whenever there is a revolution that academics like me get shot no matter who wins.

FarkedOver:Spare Me: Guhh wut? Soo, nobody was greedy before Capitalism? Soo, if Capitalism ends, no one will ever be greedy?

You actually believe you can eliminate greed?

Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

That's not greed, that's just consumerism. It's a very particular subtype of greed, and yes, it's unique to the modern capitalist era. But greed (and more generally, striving for status, which is the real issue--we just live in a culture that defines status primarily by wealth) is as old as humanity. Hell, it's even older, with territorial animals struggling for the areas with more food and the better mates. And that's why cooperation among the working class tends to break down: because they're the same flawed, competitive human beings as the capitalist class, and plenty of them will be happy to sell you out to get ahead. By all means, if you think you can somehow reforge humanity into a perfect cooperative, go for it. But I don't think you can. The reason Communism has turned out so badly when attempted in real life is that some of those oppressed workers, given any semblance of power, will just start using it to accumulate their own wealth, whether it be Black Sea dachas in the USSR or Chavez's alleged billions. In the end, some people are willing to share, but the struggle for power filters them out and puts the worst of whatever group is in charge on top.

I guess basically what I'm trying to say is that if you could solve the problems that make Communism fail, you could use that same knowledge of fixing human kind to make any social system work. Capitalism isn't fair, but it tries to take advantage of humanity's bad aspects, and as cynical as it, and as imperfect as the results are, that's why it works out better than idealistic societies that assume all humans want to share or be equal or work together. Will it have to end some day? Sure. But it'll probably be resource constraints ending growth and collapsing the system rather than a change in human ways.

FarkedOver:Spare Me: FarkedOver: Spare Me: Guhh wut? Soo, nobody was greedy before Capitalism? Soo, if Capitalism ends, no one will ever be greedy?

You actually believe you can eliminate greed?

Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

There are no other forms of greed?

Fundamentally what is that humans want? To go through life with as little hardship as possible. I don't believe the entire human centers around greed and people acting like dicks constantly. I am not subscribing to some bullshiat randian philosophy.

This got posted while I was typing the above, but yeah: this is where we disagree. There are multiple types of people, some just want minimal hardship, but some are social climbers, and there have always been those, and they'll always end up at the top over the ones that just want to get by, and they'll always exploit that place at the top, whether to siphon labor surplus into their own pockets as CEOs or to have the NKVD jail anyone with something they want.

/Colombian/Bogota is is much better than it was years ago/Medellin>Bogota.

Didnt mean you. Someone suggested that the exito takeover was a blow to the colombian goverment, and even worse, that Chavez' death will bring "peace".

I know you did not mean me. I guess the Exito(which is my favorite grocery store in Colombia which my wifes says "vamos a ver tu amigo, el exito".) take over was a brilliant plot to foil the Colombian and French owners of the chain.

FarkedOver:I don't agree with the assertion that Kulaks were the peasantry. They were affluent farmers.

According to the Soviet terminology, the peasants were divided into three broad categories: Bednyak bednyaks, or poor peasants; serednyaks, or mid-income peasants; and kulaks, the higher-income farmers who had larger farms than most Russian peasants. In addition, they had a category of batraks, landless seasonal agriculture workers for hire.

They were petite bourgeoisie at the very least.

They may have been 'petit bourgeoisie' in a purely Marxist sense, but they were farking peasants. They lived and thought and acted like Russian peasants. The kulaks were just the guys who got a small windfall of land in the revolution. And with the nobility gone, the only people in a position to oppress the peasantry were the Bolsheviks, which of course, they did. I can't remember why Stalin had insisted on collecivization in the first place, since it wasn't necessary to mess with Soviet agriculture. The peasants (and 'kulaks') were doing just fine under Vladimir Ilyich's New Economic Policy.

FarkedOver:This text is now purple: FarkedOver: Greed as we know it aka the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Accumulating as much needless crap as we can stuff in our McMansions. Yes, these are products of marketing and capitalism.

Greed is as old as the first amoeba that ate another amoeba.

That's not a good comparison at all. So if there is some homeless man living on the street that hasn't eaten in days and he goes into a grocery store and steals some bread, he does so because he is greedy?

If he does it without considering and accounting for the various needs of the storekeeper, and the society in which he exists writ large, then yes, he's being greedy.

Toby Flenderson:I'm always a little skeptical about these kinds of reports, considering it's in the US's best interest to vilify any successful attempt at social reform that benefits the poor for fear it might spread here as well.

BTW, did anyone bother to look up the source of this guy's information?

http://sites.google.com/a/cjiausa.us/www/

Seems legit.

A Zionist propaganda firm out of Miami? How much more legit can it be?